100 days: Day 11

14/12/2009

Where you from?

‘You from around here, yeah?’ inquired the disembodied North Walian drawl. Kyle turned to confirm that he was the subject of the inquisition. He was. A dishevelled man-child in a chequered shirt attempted to maintain equilibrium, two foot from the back of Kyle’s chair. His South English vowels seemed to illicit this reaction whenever out past ten pm (or thereabouts) in his birthplace of Bangor.

‘Sorry?’ Kyle countered with a misjudged level of politeness. The man-child saw this as an invitation to sit backwards on the nearest chair and continue the conversation on a more intimate level.

‘Where you from?’ he pressed, spilling Strongbow as his gestures intensified.

‘Penmaenmawr,’ answered Kyle, referring the town nine miles along the coast where he’d spent his formative years. The man-child took a long hard look at Kyle.

‘Oh right,’ he reluctantly slurred, ‘that’s okay then,’ he then got up and stumbled off, his micro-xenophobic tension quelled. Kyle breathed a sigh of relief and continued his conversation. He still wonders what would have happened if I, I mean he, answered Brighton. Damn farmhands.